Community Foundation Santa Cruz County: How the Funding Information Network Supports Our Work

The Funding Information Network provides local grantseekers free access to professional tools and resources. Every day at our center, people can gain skills to become a successful grantseeker or proposal writer.

Nowhere else in our county can someone get this kind of funding data. Data that’s been verified, coded, and sorted to meet the needs of local nonprofits and individual grantseekers.

Being a network partner has deepened our connections with nonprofits, offering help beyond grants. We’re trained and able to provide coaching and occasionally a useful reality check.

Being a network partner has given us the opportunity to be personable and human with people, to demystify and take the scariness out of grantseeking, to broaden our reach.

As the network supervisor, I feel it has opened doors to greater interaction with our grantees and applicants. If we can’t fund you, we can help you.

Feedback from the people we serve are a testament to the value the partnership brings:

“A bright light on what can be a difficult path to find and follow through to a successfully funded grant.”

“What a wonderful resource, available right in our backyard. Thank you!”

“I learned a lot. Made a complicated process easy.”

“Thank you for offering this service. It helped give me a sense of direction.”

How it All Began

In 1997, with support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, we joined a small group of other community foundations in devising ways to provide training and support to our nonprofits.

When project funding ran out, our board saw the value and made the commitment to continue providing this kind of help.

We use our operating and grant funds to provide year-round nonprofit resources and workshops. In 2006, we took it to the next level and joined the network.

A Network of Support

Some other great benefits of being a partner are:

Technical assistance and outreach. Our local grantseekers get personalized, fast, professional fundraising research guidance from Foundation Center staff.

Free access to online data and materials to use for our own in-person trainings and resource library; plus over 40 workshops a year in fundraising, board and executive leadership, and communications.

Easy connection and peer-learning with 450+ network partners through online groups and national and regional conferences. We’re all in it for the right reasons, and support each other’s work in advancing the social sector.

The network has been a real win for our community foundation and a most successful partnership.

​Kim East oversees the Funding Information Network at Community Foundation Santa Cruz County. She helps nonprofits and individual grantseekers get the help they need for success. Kim manages nonprofit workshops and a resource library, as well as working as a communications associate.

Since 1982, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County has helped donors, their advisors, and local nonprofits invest in the future of Santa Cruz County, California. They are a Funding Information Network partner and a CF Insights member.